Screen Saver Problem

[arc1953]

Recently I have noticed that the screen saver has not been displaying iPhoto pictures as it had previously had. When I go to System Prefs, Desktop/Screen Saver I see in the display box that one of the default patterns is there. When I click on 'Classic' to try to change it to a slide show, I get the eternal spinning wheel and am forced to force quit. I can click on any of the default patterns without problems, only when I try to get it to go to 'slide show' does it do this. Yesterday I downloaded Onyx and have ran it twice thinking that it would find something. I have looked everywhere that I know to look and don't see what's wrong. Ideas? 2009 Macbook 10.8.5
arc

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hi,

-What source for the photos - iPhoto, Pictures folder, etc?
-How many photos are you trying to use?
-How many photos in iPhoto, if that is the source?
-Does iPhoto open and run normally?
-Which version of iPhoto?

C

 

[arc1953]

Hi Cory,

What source for the photos - iPhoto, Pictures folder, etc?

iPhoto

-How many photos are you trying to use?

I usually select any one of the iPhoto albums. There are 11 albums containing anywhere from 3 to 813 pics.

How many photos in iPhoto, if that is the source?

1,960

Does iPhoto open and run normally?

Yes

Which version of iPhoto?

8.1.2
Out of curiosity I took a look at iPhoto on my 2012 MBP. It has even more pics in it, runs them ok in screen saver, and it is iPhoto 9.4.2, although both computers are OSX 10.8.5 . To me that seems strange. I always do the software updates when there are any.
This macbook isn't even letting me get far enough to select iPhoto as the source. Also, I notice that the screen goes black when it is time for the screen saver to activate. It seems to me that this mb has never been the same since the hard drive got replaced in Oct., more crashes than ever, etc. Thanks for your help Cory.
arc

 

[Cory Cooper]

Thanks for the additional information.

You can download a manual update of iPhoto. Which version is the one that is having issues?

C

 

[arc1953]

It is the Macbook using iPhoto 8.1.2 that is having issues. At the risk of sounding stupid, how does one go about doing a manual update? This morning I clicked on Software Updates, and after a period of time, it said no app updates available. I sense that you are referring to something different. Should I be running iPhoto 9.4.2 like the Macbook Pro is? Or something different? As an aside, this week I installed Tech Tool Pro 8, thinking that it would point to a problem. It didn't. Thank you for your help.
arc

 

[Cory Cooper]

OK, I thought it might be a different version of iPhoto 9, not iPhoto 8.iPhoto 8 is from iLife '09 and iPhoto 9 is from iLife '11. Do you have the iLife '11 install DVD, or did you purchase iPhoto 9 from the App Store?

C

 

[arc1953]

Last October when the hard drive failed, I took it to the repair shop and it returned with Mountain Lion installed and no iLife. I installed iLife from backups that I had made. This is why the older version of iLife. I have found 2 install discs. One of them says 'MacBook Mac OS X Install DVD, Mac OS Version 10.6.1, Disc version 1.0'. The other one says, 'MacBook Applications Install DVD, AHT version 3A183, Disc version 1.0, 2Z691-6518-A'. I'm not yet convinced that these are the right ones. I will continue to see if I can find others. Judging from what you have pointed out, it seems to me that the installed version of iLife is not compatible with OS 10.8.5. Am I correct? Thank you again for your help.
arc

 

[Cory Cooper]

Those are the original discs and probably have iLife '09 on them. iLife '09 and '11 are both compatible with Mountain Lion. iLife '11 was available on a DVD and in the App Store. Some of the newer Macs also came with iLife '11 pre-installed, or as a free download from the App Store once you went through the initial setup and opened the App Store for the first time - you would enter your Apple ID and "accept" them.

If you login to the App Store and look in Purchased, are the iLife apps there? If so, you may be able to download them and get the newer version on that particular Mac.

C

 

[arc1953]

I downloaded the app update. That didn't fix it. Screen still goes black when time for screen saver. Thanks for your advice.
arc

 

[Cory Cooper]

Since you are running Mountain Lion, you could try repairing disk permissions. Also, try putting a few photos/images in a folder in your Pictures folder, and point the screensaver to use that to see if it works.

C

 

[arc1953]

In 'System Preferences-Screen Saver' if I click on anything other than the pre loaded Apple screensavers, it will do the eternal spinning wheel. I have repaired disk permissions many times. Thank you for your help.
arc

 

[Cory Cooper]

Do you have a current Time Machine or other backup of your data?

We may need to delete some preferences in your user library to solve that issue.

C

 

[arc1953]

Yes, this computer is backed up
arc

 

[arc1953]

Something else I have been thinking about lately, and I don't know if it is relevant or not, after the computer returned from the shop, with a new hard drive, mountain lion, and missing iLife, I had to create another user with admin status to enable it to retrieve the older iLife from my backups. That alias still exists on the macbook. I can't help but wonder if that has a bearing on the problem…….or not.
arc

 

[arc1953]

Since my last post I have deleted the user that had to be created to retrieve the backups. That didn't help. Although the screwed up screen saver is very annoying and is an indicator of something not right, the worst problem is that the macbook freezes up, and I have to power off manually, usually once or twice every day. This thing has not been right since the new hard drive and os upgrade.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Since the MacBook seems to have additional issues, it may be wise to have the hard drive surface scanned and a full diagnostic run on it. The replacement drive may have bad blocks on it, which is a possible cause of the freezing.

C

 

[arc1953]

Wouldn't Onyx and/or Tech Tool Pro have discovered it and pointed it out to me?

 

[Cory Cooper]

OnyX won't, but TechTool Pro will, if you run a full surface scan for bad blocks.

C

 

[arc1953]

Yes, I have done the full scan. It came up with nothing.
arc

 

[arc1953]

Today I let Tech Tool Pro do a full scan, and then I ran Onyx. While letting it scan the preference files, it said that there was an unexpected character on line 1 in this folder.
/Users/myname/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iphotomosaic.plist
Is this trouble? If so what can be done about it? I double clicked on the folder and it gave me a page of unreadable(to me) stuff.